The latest episode of the political melodrama “Fiscal Crisis” has ended, and the next one – the vote on the debt ceiling in two months — is already being promoted. It promises to follow the familiar story line. Fiercely ideological…
Author Archive for jeff.faux
Election Over: Time for Progressive Dems to Face the Truth
by jeff.faux •
Terrorized by the prospect of a complete takeover of the U.S. government by right-wing reactionaries — progressive Democrats swallowed their unhappiness with Barack Obama throughout the campaign. They gamely defended his policies on the economy, health care, budget priorities and…
Apple’s Low-Wage Path to America’s Future
by jeff.faux •
With the introduction of iPhone 5, Apple Inc. is now the world’s richest company, valued at over $625 billion. Given its momentum, the firm in another year or so could be worth a trillion dollars. It is more than just…
Education Profiteering; Wall Street’s Next Big Thing?
by jeff.faux •
The end of the Chicago teachers’ strike was but a temporary regional truce in the civil war that plagues the nation’s public schools. There is no end in sight, in part because — as often happens in wartime — the…
Barry Commoner and the Dream of a Liberal Third Party
by jeff.faux •
Barry Commoner died on September 30 at the age of 95. The New York Times called him “a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers in making environmentalism a people’s cause.” Among many accomplishments,…
Big Dollar, Little Democracy (review of Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop it, by Lawrence Lessig))
by jeff.faux •
Money talks.. It is also a conversation stopper. Almost any discussion among progressives of what is really needed to solve the nation’s multiple crises typically ends in despair when someone says, “But they will not accept that,” they being…
In The Twilight of Empire
by jeff.faux •
Historians who look back to our time will surely conclude that our problem was not that we didn’t know where we were headed, it was that we didn’t act on what we knew. Before the financial crash of 2008-2009 and…
Paul Ryan’s Wink
by jeff.faux •
Many Democrats turned away from the Republican convention both incredulous and optimistic. As one put it: “How do these guys think they can win with a such an out-of-touch hard right platform?” The answer is, they don’t. History tells us…
Servant Economy: Interview with Diane Rehm, NPR
by jeff.faux •
MS. DIANE REHM Thanks for joining us. I’m Diane Rehm. The middle class, as we have known it, is on the way out. That’s according to Jeff Faux, founding president at the Economic Policy Institute. In the new book, he…
Servant Economy: Interview at AFL-CIO
by jeff.faux •
Jeff Faux, Distinguished Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), joined us here today at the AFL-CIO to discuss his new book, The Servant Economy: Where America’s Elite is Sending the Middle Class. The event launches the AFL-CIO summer book series, which includes discussions with noted economists who will…